About 2 weeks after my dad was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, my boyfriend proposed to me. I learned afterward that the proposal had been planned for some time and that my entire family knew it was coming. I, on the other hand, was taken by complete surprise.
It felt strange to be elated and want to celebrate this relationship milestone during a time when my family was experiencing such a difficult time. I chose to focus on my dad and ended up putting off wedding planning for a few months.
When we finally made some wedding decisions and set a date, my fiancé and I agreed that if things ever (God forbid) went south with my dad, that we would go ahead and get married so that he could be there. Of course, we never thought we’d find ourselves in that position and never stopped to think about how we’d actually get married if we did.
But, almost a year later, it happened. My dad received some concerning test results and was admitted to the hospital. His cancer was spreading beyond the point of control and beyond all hope of achieving remission. He was terminal.
While we weren’t at the point of palliative care, he had started to have more days of being heavily medicated than not. We became astutely aware that we were running out of good days.
It was time for plan B.
People will help you, if you just let them.
We were still 8 months out from the wedding we had been planning; I had no idea how to pivot from planning that and craft a new plan. How would we do this? And how would we do it quickly?
Thankfully, all I had to do was ask. I started by asking around at the hospital. Could we get married in the chapel? The short answer was no, but the long answer was that I could get married in a “family room” in my dad’s unit. And I could do it the following Saturday, just 3 days later.
Things snowballed from there. We quickly got a marriage license. A co-worker’s husband offered to serve as our officiant. And the members of our immediate families who were living out of state at the time had confirmed that they would be able to make the trip to be in attendance.
I continued to get more good news with every visit to see my dad. The charge nurse had coordinated with the nurses who would be caring for my dad on our wedding day to schedule his medication such that he would be alert for the ceremony. She had also partnered with staff from the gift shop and the cafeteria to decorate the family room and make us a wedding cake.
My friends rallied around me as well, volunteering to help me get ready for my big day by doing my hair and makeup, coming out later that night to celebrate our nuptials, and gifting us with a hotel stay for the wedding night.
I’m the type of person who always tries to do everything for everyone; it was humbling and stunning to have others go above and beyond for me.
. . .
Serendipity is real.
As we made plans to pull together our impromptu wedding, we knew that we would want photos to capture the memories. We’d already booked a friend to photograph the Plan A wedding, so we reached out to her to see if she’d be available to commemorate this one as well.
In talking with her, we were reminded that we already had an engagement session scheduled with her for that exact date. Not only was she available for us; we already had her booked! Sweet serendipity.
. . .
Always keep your promises.
This wasn’t the first or only setback during my dad’s battle with leukemia. Anytime I was shaken by bad news, he would reassure me that he wasn’t going down without a fight or that he wasn’t giving up.
He also started to remind me that he had promised to walk me down the aisle and that there was no way he was going to miss out on that. As time wore on and he grew weaker, he shifted his plans, but he never wavered.
After receiving his terminal prognosis, he said to me, “Dad’s pretty tired. Dad’s gonna walk you down the aisle! But, dad’s pretty tired. Deal?” And with the help of my brother and a wheelchair, he did.
. . .
Time is precious.
I didn’t know how long I would have with my dad. You don’t think about it; you just assume you have forever. Until you don’t. Or until a terminal illness is staring you in the face.
It’s easy to forget that you don’t know how much time you’re going to get with a person. Or how much time you have. Most of us don’t like to be reminded of our mortality, but when we are, we should let it serve as a kick in the pants to be with those who are most significant to us and do the things that are most important to us.
We got almost 4 more months with my dad after the hospital wedding, but he passed away a few months shy of the original date. I’m so thankful that we made his presence at our wedding a priority and got married the way that we did.
. . .
Your life doesn’t need to be Pinterest perfect.
And neither does your wedding. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a big day! But, there’s so much societal pressure to have this perfectly dreamy, over-the-top elaborate, expensive wedding day. People even go into debt to foot the bill for just this one day.
It makes it feel like if you don’t have that kind of wedding, that you’ll be disappointed or somehow be “less married”. In reality, I’m just as married as I would be if I’d had a $50,000 wedding, eloped to Las Vegas, or gone to my local courthouse to seal the deal.
Remember what the day truly signifies and that the only real goal at the end of it, is to be married. Keep what’s important to you top of mind, so that you don’t let Pinterest run amuck.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Lindsi Katheryn